From this Friday's PBS Newshour, overpaid Republican turd-polisher, New York Times columnist and white supremacist Charles Murray fan, David Brooks, was asked to weigh in on the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
To no one's surprise, Brooks expressed concern that the coverage of the anniversary was a bit too politicized, and he wished there was more focus on the grass roots movement pushing for the laws passage, because we all know the only ones allowed to politicize every issue to help themselves get elected are Republicans.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, this week, we also observed the anniversary of another big, big piece of legislation, David, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The whole week, we have heard a lot about it. How do you see — how do you believe the Civil Rights Act has changed this country?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, it’s one of the great pieces of legislation of the 20th century. Aside from the legal effect it had on how we enforce laws, it sent a marker that discrimination of all sorts was just not going to be tolerated.
And, of course, it’s been an imperfect journey along that route, but the intellectual shift happened with that law, and that the people who were defending any sort of discrimination or were motivated by sort of unfairness were on the defensive. And I think it accelerated the increasing fairness of society.
The one point I have said about all the coverage of it, it seems to me a little politically-heavy, a little LBJ-heavy. If you looked at some of the momentum up to the law, to me, the crucial event, a crucial event was the March on Washington.
And it’s worth remembering, then, when Bayard Rustin and Philip Randolph really first initiated the idea for that march, there was intense opposition from the establishment civil rights groups. And it was seen as a bold move. It was only after Birmingham that you got some momentum behind that thing.
And that — and it’s an emphasis that to pass major legislation like that, it really helps to have a gigantic social movement first. And it’s very hard to do that without the social movement first.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Out in the country.
MARK SHIELDS: Yes.
No, and the March on Washington, just if you’re going to start passing out credit, Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers was the organizer, architect, engineer and producer of that. Without that — but it was transformational, the Civil Rights Act.
Brooks of course ignores the fact that his party is still opposed to everything that "social movement" was and has been doing to this day when it comes to racial discrimination. They've put a kinder, gentler face on it, but their policies and views haven't changed for decades now.
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